Cable communication systems typically use a cable modem termination system (CMTS) in communication with a plurality of cable modems. The CMTS forms the interface to an Internet protocol (IP)-based network over the Internet. The CMTS modulates the data from the Internet for transmission to cable modems (e.g., homes, mobile devices, and offices) and receives the upstream data from the cable modems. The CMTS also manages load balancing and error correction. In these existing systems, for data to be transmitted from one cable modem to another, the data is first transmitted from one cable modem to the CMTS, and then from the CMTS to the second cable modem.
DOCSIS 3.1 uses orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) for data transmission. OFDM is a complex modulation method that uses a number of narrowband subcarriers (up to 8,192). All subcarriers are transmitted simultaneously. The set of simultaneously-transmitted subcarriers is called an OFDM symbol. Between OFDM symbols, a guard interval or cyclic prefix is used to prevent inter-signal interference during transmission and therefore prevents a loss of data.
Compared to fourth-generation (4G) cellular networks, 5G networks use smaller cells with higher bandwidth and lower latency. Accordingly, methods that communicate data between cells of a 4G network may be unable to handle the larger number of cells of a 5G network, especially while attempting to meet the higher bandwidth and lower latency requirements of 5G. Additionally, since the 5G cells are smaller, the percentage of mobile connections that will be near the edge of a cell or in overlapping cells is higher when compared to 4G.